Newt Gingrich has just launched his campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 – only for Gingrich's train to be derailed as soon as it left the station.

So far Gingrich has been revealed to have owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to upmarket jeweler Tiffany, rashly attacked the Republican party's signature policy before making an abject apology, been humbled by a conservative icon and humiliated by an ordinary voter in the crucial state of Iowa.

The funny thing is that Gingrich has been threatening to run for the presidency for years. Now he has finally taken the plunge it has become glaringly obvious that the years have not tempered his weaknesses: a big mouth coupled with miniscule political judgment.

Newt's nasty week started on Sunday when he appeared on Meet The Press, and launched into an attack on the healthcare budget-cutting plans of Republican Paul Ryan, describing it as "right-wing social engineering." Since the Ryan proposals have become a litmus test for Republicans – in that almost the entire Congressional party supports them – Gingrich was quickly attacked on all sides of the Republican movement, from the governor of South Carolina to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, not a single Republican outside Gingrich's own campaign came to his defence, at least not in public.

Gingrich first blamed the media for "gotcha" questions, which convinced no-one. Then he endured an on-camera verbal assault from Russell Fuhrman, a Republican voter in Iowa, which was repeatedly screened on Fox News:

Fuhrman: What you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.

Gingrich: I didn't do anything to Paul Ryan.

Fuhrman: Yes, you did. You undercut him.... you're an embarrassment to our party.

Gingrich: I'm sorry you feel that way.

Fuhrman: Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?

"He's done," Krauthammer said. "He didn't have a big chance from the beginning, but now it's over. Apart from being contradictory and incoherent … in the course of one day on the individual mandate, calling the Republican plan which all but four members of the House have now endorsed and will be running on, calling it 'radical' and 'right-wing social engineering' is deadly."

The icing on Newt's poisoned cake was the revelation by Politico that the former Speaker of the House of Representatives had racked up a credit card debt at Tiffany & Co worth between $250,000 and $500,000, thanks to public financial disclosures made by his wife Callista:

She listed a "revolving charge account" at Tiffany and Company in the liability section of her personal financial disclosure form for two consecutive years and indicated that it was her spouse's debt. The liability was reported in the range of $250,001 to $500,000.

Gingrich's campaign has so far refused to comment on the Tiffany's tab.

It wasn't Newt's fault that same-sex marriage campaigners dumped a box of glitter on his head at his book signing in Minnesota yesterday. Given the week he's had already, Gingrich should be grateful it was just glitter.

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment's cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won't be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.

That should probably win some sort of prize for chutzpah. But in the meantime: taxi for Mr Gingrich.